


Meeting

by DanaSPriddy



Series: Morgan Rothchild Series [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Family Drama, Loki's good parenting, Odin's A+ Parenting, Reincarnation, odin's A+ grandparenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-10-14 02:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10527345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanaSPriddy/pseuds/DanaSPriddy
Summary: Over the years, Morgan meets many people from his old life.





	1. Jörmungandr

**Author's Note:**

> If I owned Thor then it would have gone a lot different...ergo I don't.

When Morgan was fourteen, his family took a diving trip. On the way out, he had stared over the boat at the endless blue of the ocean and wondered what kinds of creatures might live in the depths where the sun couldn’t reach. He had stared out into this, skimming his fingers along the top of the water while the captain of their small boat tried to find the best spot for dolphins and other animals. In the background, he heard his parents talking to his brother who was suffering a sudden bout of nerves.

In the end, the whole family got in the water.

Surrounded by that endless blue, Morgan had just let himself drift; watching as fish poked their heads out of their hiding places to stare at them. It was peaceful, welcoming. And then a sudden surge of water hit him square in the chest and knocked him away from his family.

He was stunned and his ears were ringing, the water around him was dark; luckily his equipment was still working, but he couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down. All around him was heavy walls of dark blue water. Panicked, he picked a direction and started swimming.

He wasn’t sure how long he had swum before he saw a dark shape move above (below?) him. He froze as the shape got closer; growing larger and larger. Rough scales wrapped around him, the coils of a creature that was at least as wide as their boat and who knows how long.

The coils were gentle, though, and instead of squeezing, crushing him, they merely held. And then the creature began to move, carrying Morgan along with them. They went…down? No, up, the endless blue became lighter and Morgan could see that he was surrounded by coils covered in scales of brilliant greens and blues. A serpent was holding him and try as he might, he couldn’t find the end of it. He could see the beginning though.

The coils pushed him out into the air and he tore off his diving mask to breath in fresh air. Gasping as if he would never have another chance to fill his lungs.

The breath caught in his throat when the head of the snake beached the water in front of him. It was the size of a bus with black eyes that were almost bigger than him. The snake’s forked tongue flicked out of its mouth, nearly touching him.

Morgan flinched back, making a face and waved a hand in front of him.

The snake laughed.

Morgan was now certain that he had been knocked out and was dreaming, it would certainly explain why he wasn’t afraid.

“You should be more careful, _Far_.” The snake hissed, its – his – tongue flicking in and out as he spoke.

“I…wha- _who_ are you?” Morgan stammered.

“A concerned party.” The snake said smoothly, “You should go back to the land, little _Far_ , my sister doesn’t want to see you again so soon.”

Before Morgan could question the snake further, the coils shifted around him. As they slid against each other the sound they made was soothing, almost hypnotic and he found himself drifting off to sleep against his will. Before losing the battle with sleep, he swore he heard the snake say, “Watcher, tell the Allfather that if he wants _Far_ back he’ll have to go through me.”    

The next thing Morgan knew was the panicked voices of his family coming from the boat. His father jumped into the ocean and pulled him into a teary embrace until the dive leader helped them both back onto the boat. His mother had sobbed in relief when he was pulled back in and his brother stayed by his side for the rest of the vacation.

Morgan had pushed the odd dream out of his mind – and his family had never traveled to the ocean again. It would be two, nearly three, decades before he would encounter the snake again – before he would remember the name Jörmungandr.

 


	2. Fenrir

The forest was surprisingly dark.

Morgan’s mother had warned him that he should stay close to the camp, that it would be night soon, but he had brushed off her warning with all the confidence of a seventeen-year-old certain that he knew better than his parents.

Now the only thing he was certain about was that he was lost.

Night had come to the forest quickly and the path had become impossible to follow. He had a sinking feeling that he had actually already left the path several feet back, but he knew that even if he turned around he would never be able to find it again. His best course of action would probably be to find a place to stay for the night, try to keep warm, and wait for the sun to come up.

Too bad he hadn’t gone to boy scouts.

Morgan hugged himself as he wandered through the woods, looking for any place to hole up for the night. A howl pierced the hush causing him to jump and spin around wildly, looking for the source of the call.

Unfortunately, he could barely see his hand in front of him, much less anything else.

The howl sounded closer the second time he heard it and animal instinct took over the teenager, causing him to break out into a dead run.

The branches scratched at his body and tore out chunks of his red hair as he flew through the dark woods, arms in front of his face to break through the trees. He moved on instinct alone, jumping and dodging logs and trees that he had no hope of seeing.

His lungs burned as he ran and still the howls dogged his every move.

And then he tripped.

He stayed frozen in place, terrified, as he listened to pack draw closer. The fact that wolves normally didn’t eat humans provided him no comfort.

Normally didn’t meant that sometimes they did.

And then, he heard a growl in front of him; low and menacing and not directed at him.

Behind him, the pack stopped. He could hear their whines as they back up, frightened. Out of the darkness in front of him something huge stepped out and couched protectively over him. Warm fur brushed over his back and he could feel the growl in his bones.

And the wolves turned tail and ran.

As the mass above him shifted back, Morgan slowly sat up. He should have been scared, he should have leap to his feet and fled after the wolves and yet when he was faced with the muzzle of a giant wolf – one big enough to easily swallow him whole – he felt strangely calm.

And sad. As the clouds shifted, the rays of the full moon illumined the clearing they were in and he was able to see the gray wolf clearly and see the scars.

They wrapped around his neck and his torso, cut into his limbs and one deep one cut straight through the top of his mouth and continued on the bottom of his muzzle as if someone had shoved a sword through his mouth.

Morgan’s hand reached out to gently touch the wound without his permission and the giant wolf leaned into the touch.

“You are far from your pack, _Far_.” The deep voice growled out.    

“I got lost.” Was all that Morgan could think to say.

“Come then, sleep against me,” the wolf invited, “I’ll keep you warm until it is light enough for you to find your way back.”

It occurred to Morgan that this might be a bad idea; that there was something very odd about finding a giant talking wolf in the woods of Montana, but he was so tired that he couldn’t finish that thought. Instead he took the wolf up on his offer and curled up against the creature, his soft gray fur surrounding him like the world’s fluffiest blanket.

“…never take him away.”

Was what Morgan thought the wolf said as he drifted off.

The next morning there was no sign of the wolf, but he did have a huge knot on his head from where he had fell; which he decided explained the giant wolf dream. After a bit of work, he was able to find his way back home…or well, he found his way back to the path and straight into his panicked mother.

His brother joked that he shouldn’t be allowed on anymore vacations and gave him his own share of the chocolate.

Morgan had decided to keep the odd dream to himself and stayed out of forests for the next few years.

It would be a long time until he met the wolf again, when Fenrir took his place beside his brother to protect their mortal father.    


	3. Hel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not happy with this chapter but...here it is.

Morgan closed his eyes and tried to relax as he listened to the anesthesiologist count backwards. The light above him was glaringly bright and the bed uncomfortably hard. The gown he’s wearing was too thin to be warm and the knots poked at his back.

He hated hospitals; hated their cold white walls and the harsh chemical perfume that hung in the air trying to cover up the smell of death. It reminded him of his nana’s final, slow battle with cancer, of the long days while his dad fought with death.

If it wasn’t for the cold drugs being pumped into his arm he would never him been able to sleep.

But the drugs were pulling him under with the promise of a velvety darkness and so, after one final glance at his brother, Morgan closed his eyes again and let sleep claim him.

He opened his eyes when he felt a cold hand on his cheek. He blinked as the darkness receded around him to reveal a field of tall gray grass that danced in a bitter wind. Around him, pale figures wandered to and fro; huddling here and talking there. They didn’t seem happy, per say, but they didn’t seem sad either.

The unworthy dead. He knew it in his bones. Unworthy in the eyes of Odin, at least, and they seemed to be piling up. It made sense; too many people die ‘honorless’ deaths in their beds now, surrounded by family and loved ones instead of on the battlefield.

Brown, no green, eyes shifted away from the landscape to look at the figure in front of him. She was shorter than him by a head and had to look up to meet his eyes with her mismatched ones; one green and one red. Half her body is pale white and the other jotun blue; half her hair as black as ravens and the other as white and snow. A silver circlet rested upon her brow and she was clothed in a green gown.

“Hel.” Lok whispered as if speaking her name would make her disappear. And he was Loki here, in the world of shades, as the memories of his past life mixed with those of his present.

“Hello, _Far_ ,” the Queen of the Underworld greeted him with a warm smile.

“I didn’t think the doctors would be so unskilled as to kill me during a simple surgery.” Loki drawled and was rewarded with a quiet laugh.

“No, you live yet, but I was able to summon you here while your body was in the twilight sleep. I wanted to see you again.” Hel admitted, “I have missed you, _Far.”_

“I’ve missed you as well, little one.” Loki replied quietly as he pulled his daughter into his arms and buried his face in her hair to breath in the scent of his only daughter. His visits with her had been short and few in the past; even a sorcerer of his strength had trouble making it to the realm of the dead, especially with Heimdall watching.

It seems like just yesterday that his children were torn from his grasp; that he had been forced to watch as his wife was killed for the sin of being a jotun.

And Thor wondered why he had taken the reveal of his true parentage so badly.

“You’ve been messing with things.” It was a statement, not a question, and Loki can feel his daughter’s mirth.

“Odin needs to be reminded of his place now and again.” She said, “When he tore your soul from your body and cast you out, he placed you within my realm and I was within my power to do whatever I saw fit with your soul.”    

“I feel as though I should thank you for not making a mouse.”

“I would never do that, _Far_ ¸ you would make a far better cat,” Hel joked back before pulling away to peer at her father, “You do like your life, now, don’t you? I didn’t have much time to search but Rachel and John seemed like they would be good parents.”

“I enjoy being Morgan,” Loki promised, “Although I do seem to be meeting some unexpected people.” 

“Sigyn freed Fenrir,” Hel answered his unasked question, “The Aesir no longer had anything to hold over her.”

Loki closed his eyes as he remembered his soft-spoken wife, withdrawal and sad, but much stronger than she looked. That she would be willing to do this for him, that she didn’t hate him for what had happened to their sons, came as a shock to Loki.

“Our time is running short, _Far_ ,” Hel interrupted his train of thoughts. When he opened his eyes, he saw what she meant; his hands with being transparent. “I have so much I wish to tell you.”

She reached out to place a hand on his cheek and Loki, already robbed of his voice, leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead.

Their ‘I love you’s were lost to the wind.

The surgery was a success and Jacob’s body accepted his brother’s kidney. Soon, both brothers were back on their feet and had returned to their normal lives. The only questions the lingered on for Morgan was why his face had been covered in tears when he woke and why he had babbled on to his parents about his wife and children while still drugged.

It would be many years before he would once again stand beside his daughter and curse the fact that his human body was too fragile to handle his magic.


	4. Sigyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan isn't the only one who meets people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay; I'm working on some original works.

Rafael was wandering through the farmer’s market with a bag that was still mostly empty and a worried look. Brown eyes darted between stalls as he bit his lip. The chef was normally very decisive when it came to shopping; he knew what he could cook and he knew what tasted best. However, normally he wasn’t cooking for the first sane date he’d had since collage. 

Cooking school and work had robbed him of his free time for the last several years and then he’d been hit with a string of crazies from various dating apps. He’d just about given up meeting anyone when a friend had introduced him to Morgan. 

They had gone out for drinks and talked for hours; Rafael didn’t know much about law and Morgan could burn water, but both had shared a passion for their work and a love of art. They had gone to a gallery for their first real date and tonight they were going to have dinner before they enjoyed a ‘wine and painting’ night. 

Morgan was bringing the paint supplies and Rafael was making the dinner. 

That was if he could figure out what to make. 

The chef sighed, Morgan hadn’t been any help. He’d promised that he would be happy with anything and as far as their shared friend knew the young lawyer lived on mac and cheese and sandwiches. 

Rafael refused to make either of those things; he had standards. 

Walking from stall to stall, he eyed the food, not paying attention to where he was walking until he ran straight into a woman. 

The stranger’s hands reached out to catch him, steadying him and he found himself looking up into eyes the color of raw honey. The woman had to be at least 6’7” and towered over him, her skin was a soft brown and her long, braided hair was nearly white and looped about her head in an odd pattern that made it hard to tell how long it was. She smiled at him, “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Rafael said, brushing a bit. He normally didn’t go about trying to knock people over. 

“It’s fine,” the woman assured him, “You looked like you were thinking very hard about something.”

“Yeah,” Rafael rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed, “I’m just trying to decide what to make for a date.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling the woman this, there was just something about her that made him want to confide in her. Maybe it was the quiet, calm that seemed to pour from her or the spark of laughter in her eyes, but something about her seemed friendly. “First real date I’ve had in a while and I’m a cook so I want to impress him.”

He tensed a bit when the word ‘him’ slipped out, even here in liberal Seattle, he normally tried not to let the world know he was bi. 

The woman didn’t even blink. 

“My husband used to love this family recipe I had,” her smile was sad when she spoke, a faraway look in her eyes. Rafael quickly glanced down to notice that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. The sorrow in her voice led him to label her a widow. “It’s a Swedish dish, but I think we could find most of the ingredients here. That is, if you want to try it.”

The chief had never made Nordic food before, but he decided that it was worth looking into. They two of them ended up spending the rest of the afternoon shopping together and the woman, who told him her name was Sigyn wrote up the recipe for him. 

Throwing caution to wind, he made kaldomar, using Sigyn’s recipe. 

It quickly became a favorite dish of the couple’s. 

As the weeks and months went by Rafael and Morgan went from dating to living together to marriage and the chief couldn’t help but wonder if it was the new recipe or the calming pep talk the kind woman had given him that had helped the first date go so well.   
-

It would be years before Morgan discovered how dangerous it was to have your ex-wife (widow?) get along so well with your current husband was.


	5. Sleipnir

Morgan didn’t like horses; he never had. He wasn’t sure why he disliked horses so much, but there was just something about them that unnerved him. He had grown up in the city and had never even seen a horse in real life until his family went camping one year when he was eleven.

He hadn’t been able to explain why he’d started crying to his parents.

They cancelled the horse trail ride and never took him to see horses again.

They had taken him to talk to someone, the same person he’d talked to about his nightmares, his extreme fear of heights, and his anxiety.

She had listened to him try and explain what it was that upset him, because he wasn’t afraid; just very upset. The therapist wasn’t sure how to help him with this issue, mainly because either of them was sure what the issue was, but as he lived in the city it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. He just avoided horses.

Unfortunately, Rafael’s family lived in the country and his grandparents owned horses.

And so, Morgan was left trying very hard to not let his boyfriend’s sweet grandmother know that last thing he wanted to do was help feed the horses.   

Which was how he came to be in the stable that evening with a pail of oats, an apple, and a growing sense of unease.

The stables were quiet; most of the horses were still in the fields racing each other in the dying sunlight, but Abril had sent him to feed the horse in the last stall; a small, scared chestnut male.

He had been a recuse horse and was still scared to leave his stall most days.

Perhaps, the woman had noticed Morgan’s nerves around the horses, because it was hard to feel anything but sad about when you saw Paz.

The horse was far smaller than he should be. Nervous and skittish, he kept glancing about and dancing around the back of the stall. When Morgan stopped outside the gate, the horse seemed to try and meld into the wall.

It was heart-breaking.

Morgan slowly, carefully, poured the oats mixed with medicine and vitamins into the feeding grate and set the pail down. He pulled the apple out even more slowly and held it out.

Paz paced against the wall and whined.

The redhead didn’t move, standing perfectly still and waiting. He wasn’t sure why, but it was oddly important to him that the horse trusted him. Morgan couldn’t stand seeing him look so very scared.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, his arm burning from the stain of holding it straight, before Paz slowly inched forward.

Morgan didn’t dare blink.

Slowly, stopping every few steps to back up, Paz approached him. The horse sniffed at his hand for a moment before very slowly taking the apple and running back to the far wall of the stall.

Morgan smiled and stepped away.

And into a solid mass behind him.

Morgan yelped and spun around to find himself staring at a tall man with long dark brown hair and black eyes.   

“Hey, Morgan, right?” The man asked with a small smile.

“Yes, I’m Morgan.” The young lawyer agreed suddenly remembering the man, he was one of the temporary workers that had arrived to help with the influx of student riders. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Call me Seth,” the man said, “I see you got Paz to eat; you’re good with horses.”

“No, I’m really not.” Morgan admitted, “They make me nervous. Paz though...” he shrugged, there really wasn’t a good way to say that the animal was too pathetic to trigger any emotion but sympathy.

“He just needs some patience and a little kindness; I don’t think he’s gotten enough of either in his lifetime.” Seth watched the pacing horse with sad eyes as he spoke, “It’s terrible how some people take advantage of animals’ dependence on them.”

The man shook himself before Morgan could think of a response to that, “I’m going to see if I can get Paz to walk – could you help me?”

“I don’t know how much help I would be.” Morgan said even as he found himself following the man back to the stall.

“Just stand over there.” Seth directed as he opened the door. Inside the stall, Paz paced and whine, shying away from the man that was slowly approaching him. Seth spoke softly to the horse, too quiet for Morgan to make out the words and slowly reached out a hand. He didn’t touch Paz, just left the hand there as an invitation.

The horse whined, shaking his head and dancing in place, but slowly, with several false starts, he reached his head forward and poked Seth’s hand with his nose.

Seth smiled and didn’t move.

It seemed to take hours, but slowly Seth coaxed Paz out of his stall while Morgan stood to the side; not sure why he was needed or what he was meant to do. Still, watching the tall man calm the scared horse was impressive. The whispered words were actually very soothing.

Once Paz was completely out of the stall, Seth waved for Morgan to follow them outside.

Between the two of them, they got Paz to walk around the field for an hour before the horse retreated back inside.

Morgan watched as the much calmer Paz settled in to eat his oats under Seth’s watchful eye. “What were you saying to him earlier? It didn’t sound like English.”

Seth smiled, “It wasn’t – it was a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. It’s Icelandic, horses seem to like it.”

“I could tell.” Morgan said, eyeing the now calm Paz.

Seth just smiled that same little smile; one that seemed to suggest that he knew a wonderful joke that Morgan wasn’t privy to. “Why don’t you come out tomorrow and we can take Paz walking again.”

Morgan did. It became a daily ritual and by the end of the summer, the lawyer found the horses didn’t upset him the way they used to.

It would be a decade before Morgan would see Seth again. His son stood tall and proud in his natural form as he tossed the Allfather off his back.

The memory of the king’s shocked face quickly became one of Morgan’s favorites to revisit.   

 


	6. Thor

Over the course of his life Morgan had met a surprising number of famous people; mostly as part of his job. As a consequence, they had lost a lot of their shine; especially the heroes. 

As a child, he had been awed by the Avengers, the X-men, and the rest of the heroic crew; it wasn’t until he entered college that the shine started to die. By then most of the old vanguard was gone; Iron Man had hung up his suit, Professor X had long ago passed and his replacement had even retired. But Thor, the golden prince, was still around. 

Around for the redhead to catch on camera pushing a peaceful protester aside as if he was nothing more than a branch in his way. 

That killed what little shine had been left. 

Morgan saw the man again, a few years later, when Thor took the stand to testify that witches were a danger to society that needed to be contained. 

The lawyer felt that the prince’s argument helped to explain why his brother had become the ‘bag of cats’ the prince was telling them about. 

The jury agreed and Thor had seemed shocked that his testimony about how, ‘magic twisted his brother’s mind – despite attempts to correct him’ made the jury more inclined to side with Mayfield; they, at least, recognized a questionable situation when they heard it. 

Honestly, Morgan hadn’t given Thor much thought after that trial – he and Rafael had adopted twin girls, later he got a promotion and Rafael opened a new restaurant with a long-time friend. Life was moving fast for the redhead and he found that he had little time for heroes. 

It was a full ten years later before he met Thor again and the first time he’d talked to him. If you could call cross-examining someone talking. 

The trial was harrowing and yet, Morgan found it surprisingly easy to coach Thor into saying what he needed the jury to hear – that his friend as bringing his son with him on dangerous missions to ‘train him’. 

Joanna had been relieved, her tearful hug had caught Morgan off guard, but it was certainly welcomed. Trials like this helped to remind him why he became a lawyer in the first place. 

He hadn’t noticed Thor watching him. 

And even if he had he wouldn’t have thought much of it. 

He certainly didn’t think much of the fifth page news that Thor had left for Asgard once again – mainly because the front page was littered with stories about an unknown object NASA had spotted heading towards Earth.


End file.
